BANG!
The sound of a desk being struck hard rang through the commander’s office.
“No! We cannot break that rule now!”
Commander Algina Admire shouted at Eugene and Bella with a voice as stern as frost.
Eugene, however, merely wore an indifferent expression.
Algina Admire.
Brown hair, gentle eyes, and an appearance that made her look as though she had only just passed thirty.
She was a human with an impressive résumé, including youngest Dragon Knight Commander, youngest Master Magician, and youngest advisor to the Imperial Magic Tower.
However, there was just one thing she lacked.
Dignity.
Dignity was something one was born with. Or else it settled naturally into the body with age.
But Algina belonged to neither case.
Because of that, Algina often suffered hardships.
To the point that she had to answer every petty complaint from her subordinates one by one, the kind a dignified middle-aged commander could have dismissed with a single word.
On top of that, her current opponent, Eugene Brace, was a man thick-skinned enough to call dragons who had lived for centuries and the elders of the Magic Tower old coots to their faces.
Eugene laughed and waved his hand.
“Come on. The ban against choosing an opposite-sex partner is basically an unspoken rule, isn’t it? It’s not written down anywhere.”
“Even if it is not codified, it is a tradition that has continued for centuries! Do you think you can do whatever you like at this point?”
Algina shook her head as if a headache were coming on.
“It has been over a thousand years since the Order was founded. Do you think there have never been people like you until now? There have been countless children who wanted to become mixed-sex Dragon Knights. But they were all rejected. That continued for centuries! The problem is that there are still dragons alive who are dissatisfied with that decision!”
The old veterans still exerted great influence over the operation of the Order. Just thinking of their faces seemed to send a chill down Algina’s spine.
“But try making an exception now. Do you think they’ll stay quiet? They’ll try to devour me—no, our entire Order.”
At her desperate rebuttal, Eugene hummed. He had expected it, but as he thought, obtaining the commander’s permission did not look easy.
She was young, capable, and on top of that, pretty.
Her achievements in the battles against the Voidnir in the future before he returned had also been great.
Algina was one of the people Eugene respected. He did not want to deliberately make things difficult for her.
But this matter was not something he could yield to anyone on.
Eugene spoke calmly.
“Even if we are the legendary Twinstella?”
“What?”
Algina’s eyes widened.
It was because anyone from the Order could not possibly be ignorant of that legendary title.
Twinstella.
Though it was called a legend, it was not as if it had never existed.
Records remained in the history books of the Dragon Knights.
Until now, there had been two pairs of Twinstella Dragon Knights.
One pair 800 years ago, and one pair 500 years ago.
And the pair from 800 years ago had been a mixed-sex pair of Dragon Knights.
Algina’s gaze changed.
But that did not mean her feelings had shifted in a direction favorable to Eugene.
“……Are you two perhaps dating?”
“Eh?”
Bella let out a foolish sound.
“Or did you meet somewhere before coming here? At the Dragon Temple or the Magic Tower?”
The intention behind Algina’s question was obvious. Eugene smiled bitterly and shook his head.
“No. We are not in that kind of relationship.”
Putting aside the fact that they had come back from the future together, Eugene and Bella were essentially strangers.
The first time they recognized each other’s existence should have been yesterday’s Dragon Master Assembly.
Algina sighed.
“Haa…… You are still young, so I can understand that you are hot-blooded. But even so, you must not lie to an adult in a situation like this.”
Her expression said that she did not believe him at all.
In Algina’s mind, Eugene and Bella seemed to have already solidified into problem children who had gotten a taste for playing with fire and were trying to drag it into the workplace.
How should I talk this auntie into it? Though she isn’t married yet…… Just as Eugene was turning his head over that, Bella, who had been silent, opened her mouth.
“We truly are Twinstella.”
The atmosphere changed at her weighty voice. Unlike Algina or Eugene, Bella was someone born with dignity.
“I swear on the name of my master, Tibolt. I accepted this man as my partner with absolutely no ulterior motives or impure feelings. I simply knew that this man possessed the finest qualifications to be my rider.”
Algina’s expression grew a little more serious.
Eugene felt strange, as though he had just been treated like an item that enhanced one’s stats, but since Bella’s words seemed to have had some effect, he closed his itching mouth.
Then, with a sidelong glance, his eyes met Bella’s as she looked this way.
The dragon gestured with her eyes toward the troubled Algina and smiled with a hmph, as if to say, See?
It was ridiculous beyond measure to see her acting so triumphant when, just last night at the Dragon Master Assembly, she had cried her eyes out saying her marriage prospects were ruined because he had personally slipped a ring onto her finger.
Just as Eugene was wondering how to bring that proud nose of hers down.
Algina emerged from her thoughts and asked,
“So, how did you two know that you were Twinstella?”
“That is…….”
They could not exactly say something absurd like, Because we came back from the future together.
Just as Bella, who was poor with words, became like a mute who had swallowed honey and rolled her eyes around.
Eugene stepped forward with a smile.
“I knew at a glance.”
“What?”
“The moment I saw her, I just felt it. Commander, have you ever fallen for someone at first sight?”
“……No.”
“Even so, you must have at least seen an object you wanted to buy at first sight.”
“And?”
“It’s similar to that. Though the feeling was far, far stronger.”
As Eugene said that, he slowly cast his gaze toward Bella. He signaled with his eyes as if telling her to add a word too.
Meeting Algina’s eyes, Bella swallowed.
To begin with, the two of them had not known they were soul mates until they performed Lance Charging in the final battle against the Voidnir.
Recognize each other at first sight, my ass.
In truth, they had been no different from enemies.
“It was……”
Unlike Eugene, from whose mouth lies came out smoothly, Bella’s lips dried as she tried to invent words that had never existed.
But when she saw Eugene looking at her as if to say, You can’t even do this? stubbornness rose within her.
“……That is correct. The moment I saw this man, I could tell that we were Twinstella.”
Bella concluded with a nod. Eugene added to it.
“It felt like being struck by lightning.”
Bella clenched her teeth and chimed in.
“……It felt like being struck by lightning.”
“It was as if we had fallen in love.”
“As if we had fallen in love…… Do you truly wish to die?”
Bella’s hand roughly snatched Eugene by the collar. Eugene shouted at her.
“Hey! Read the room! Do you know where we are?!”
“And yet you make that kind of joke in a place like this? At the Dragon Master Assembly too—really, a man like you is truly……!”
The two began bickering loudly with each other.
But Algina had no leisure to pay attention to the two of them. Her head was too complicated.
Once again, a sigh escaped her.
Algina looked at Bella, whose face was red as she huffed in anger, and Eugene, who was straightening his collar with an awkward look.
What if those two really were Twinstella?
Then she could not forcibly separate them.
In the entire history of the Order until now, there had been only two pairs of Twinstella Dragon Knights.
But all of them had been historical figures who had accumulated tremendous achievements. That was why, even now, centuries after such a fantastical pair had last appeared, their existence still rose and fell from people’s lips.
“……Fine. I will first check whether there is precedent.”
As Algina said that, she searched beneath her desk and pulled out a book large enough to use as a shield.
“What is that book?”
“The handwritten records of past commanders. They contain how exceptional situations that have occurred until now were handled. There should be a story similar to yours somewhere. I need to check how the previous commanders handled it.”
It had not been very long since Algina had taken office as commander.
Her predecessor had sat in this position for a full hundred years, yet he had left the Order without properly handing over the role even once.
Because of that, Algina had always had no choice but to rely on this book to run the Order.
Rustle, rustle.
Algina quickly skimmed the contents while turning the pages.
“Here it is.”
And she found it.
How previous commanders had handled things when a dragon and rider came to them claiming they were Twinstella and requested permission to form a mixed-sex Dragon Knight pair.
***
“Twinstella means soul mates. It refers to beings connected from somewhere unseen. According to a scholar who studied them for a long time, they have something called a Soul Link, a connection of souls, which allows them to share information to some extent through means other than the five senses.”
Zeta, the vice commander of the Order and Algina’s partner dragon, explained.
She examined the document with interest and read the remaining passage to Eugene, who sat before her.
“According to the test results he left behind, Twinstella were able to write random numbers from 1 to 100 in the exact same order without any communication, even when they were completely separated from one another.”
Zeta and Eugene were in a small room prepared in the administrative wing of the Order.
Eugene was seated at a small desk where paper and an inkwell containing a quill pen had been placed.
Most likely, Bella was also in some room somewhere with the exact same items before her eyes.
Passing the test written in the commander’s records.
That was the condition Algina had set in order to permit Eugene and Bella to become partners.
Looking down at the paper on the desk, Eugene asked,
“So I just write down numbers however I like?”
“Yes. But you cannot write them in proper order from 1 to 100 without disturbing the sequence.”
“Anything else is allowed?”
“There are no other particular prohibitions besides that.”
Zeta said so while looking at the document where the rules of the test were written.
“……Does this test really have meaning?”
“It does. This is not merely something written in the records the commander found. There are actual research records stating that every Twinstella pair that has existed until now wrote those numbers identically.”
“How do we know whether those records are real or not?”
“If we argue that way, there is no end to it. You are trying to break a tradition that has continued for centuries. If so, show proof worthy of that.”
Unlike the good-natured Algina, Zeta, the vice commander, had a strict and unforgiving personality when it came to rules.
When she sent him a cold look, Eugene had no choice but to grumble and look down at the paper again.